


Loving You Was A Losing Game

by The_Ghost_King



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Best Friends, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Hurt James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tony Stark, Inspired by Music, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark at MIT, James "Rhodey" Rhodes Needs a Hug, Love, M/M, MIT Era, Not Iron Man 2 Compliant, One Shot, POV James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Wakes & Funerals, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27441232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Ghost_King/pseuds/The_Ghost_King
Summary: From the very first moment James Rhodes meets Tony Stark he knows nothing good will come of it.Tony is fourteen-years-old. 70 pounds soaking wet and knows nothing of the world.They become friends anyway.They becomemore(at some point, later on).It does not end well for them.orJames had always known that loving Tony Stark was a losing game.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	Loving You Was A Losing Game

**Author's Note:**

> Hey yeah, I still write marvel fic hahahaha, my interest has just been all over the place. Either way hope you enjoy.

Knowing that your best friend is dying and that there's nothing you can do about it feels like the biggest metaphorical middle finger the universe can possibly pull.

James Rhodes would know, he's living it after all.

He's been living it since he met Tony Stark. Fourteen years old, first year at MIT, less than 70 pounds soaking wet, and ready to burn the whole place down.

Tony's heart is weak and he's always a hair's width away from falling over and shattering into a million pieces. Palladium in his veins and James has always known that loving him is a losing game but he never would've thought he'd lose this quick.

He always knew he'd lose, just not this quick.

* * *

They were roommates first.

Barely acquainted. 

James had gone out of his way to keep his distance from Tony Stark. 'Cause rich white boys tend to disappoint on the 'woke' metre.

Stark, because he wasn't Tony (not yet), had surprised him. Not because he was particularly aware or because he was so incredibly understanding. Quite the opposite actually, Tony Stark at age 14 was all sharp edges to hide the soft squishy empathetic boy underneath. He was like a kitten in his attacks on James’s behalf, scratching and hissing but not doing much. It’d been one instance, James walking to their dorm room, that was the first step to this realisation. The first step to him getting to know Tony and not just ‘Stark’. 

He hadn’t known that Tony was behind at the time, too lost in thought, when two blond-haired blue-eyed kids bumped into him. It was definitely on purpose and James was assured of this with what one of them whispered under his breath, inflammatory and vile. He wanted to turn around and hiss at them, to stretch up to his full height and let them know that he had earned his spot on this campus, that he was deserving of all the things they never had to lift a finger for and more, but he restrained himself. His momma always told him that there is no point in fighting with boys like these. He will not be the one walking away victorious. 

He’s never liked it, not on the playground when little white boys would smile smugly and tell him he couldn’t play with them because he’d make their clothes ‘dirty’. Not when he’d walk home with his momma and felt people stare like they did not belong there. 

He’s never liked it, but he’s resigned himself to it, has resigned himself not to let out his anger but instead live well, live  _ better _ . What other option is there?

James Rhodes does not need saving but apparently fourteen-year-old Tony Stark things he does. A sound from behind him, a hiss so low and vicious that it makes James wonder about the anger held by someone who could utter it comes from behind him. He turns around and there stands Tony and there’s realisation in his eyes, like the things he’s heard about are finally  _ real _ to him and not just a thing of stories. There’s also anger and the words he spits at the guys are unimportant because his tone,  _ his tone _ , is filled with vitriol. Anger on James’s behalf, like he needs Tony to defend him.

James wants to roll his eyes at him, wants to go off on this 14-year-old for having the luxury of ignorance but he refrains. He breathes in deep, exhales through his mouth and as Tony stares after the white boys with fury in his eyes, Rhodey opens the door to their dorm and says, “Thanks”. 

Tony beams at him, and it’s new and warm and not so painfully guarded as James has noted everything ‘real’ about him is. He enters their dorm and holds the dorm for Tony to follow him inside.

He feels like he’s lost something with this interaction, there’s anger simmering low in his stomach still, but looking at the relaxed line of Tony Stark’s shoulders James wonders if it might be worth it. If it ends up starting something good.

James finds Tony at a frat party a few days later. The kid was out of his mind, unable to string two words together. Being fed alcohol and other substances by preying twenty-year-olds, who looked at him like he was a prize or a trophy. Like they had accomplished something by hurting a genius child, who might be outperforming them in all their classes, and who acted mature but was a  _ child _ nonetheless. James had decided then that his roommate was under his protection.

So he’d dragged Tony back to their room and made sure he threw up in the toilet and not all over their floor. He’d put him to bed and left water and Advil on his bedside table for when he'd inevitably wake up with a killer hangover. He’d waited till he heard him fall soundly asleep before he’d locked their door and made his way to his own bed.

Their bond had started out shaky, with distrust from James for everything Tony stood for and everything he unknowingly embodied, and hesitancy from Tony because there were few people in his life who’d wanted to get to know him, with no regard for his family name.

It’s been a lot of talking, a lot of staying up till the early hours and explaining things to one another.

It’d been a week or two after that very first incident that there’d been another snide comment made and Tony had jumped the gun to come to his defence again and that night James sat him down and said, “You don’t have to fight for me Tones, I don’t need your protection.” And Tony hadn’t understood, not at first. He hadn’t understood the gravity of the climate James exists in, had not understood the fragility of his position, the constant way he had to hold his anger back, hold back his indignation because James Rhodes is going to  _ be someone _ . He’s going to be someone, for everyone who never got the chance to and he doesn’t need scrawny white boys to fight his battles for him. He’s grown, these are things he can do himself, these are problems he will face himself and they will bend and then break before him. This was his way to pave, his road to walk and he would with his head held high and with no one to tell him he didn’t earn every last credit.

After that incident, and a few more here and there over the years, it'd always been Tony and Rhodey, a two-man army against the rest of the world.

Those moments had been the start, and as far as James is concerned the rest is history.

They’d gone through a rough patch when Tony’s parents died.

James had supported Tony to the best of his abilities every step of the grieving process. . Provided him with a space to come home to and relax in when all his newfound responsibility became too much, and Tony, with all his volatile emotions and his thoughts that ran quicker than any normal human could comprehend, had taken it eagerly.

He'd basked in the moments where he could slump against James's chest and cry for hours knowing he would not be judged. James held Tony almost every night the first year after his parents' death, held him as he cried and wailed. As he raged at the world for taking his mother from him, one of three adults who’d ever made him feel like he was  _ someone _ , like he could be someone  _ more. _ James had been there for every tantrum and held Tony through it and he'd do it again. No questions asked because it meant holding him through the hardship meant he was right there as the life came back to Tony’s eyes. James was right there as Tony came back to himself bit by bit, pieced himself together and faced the world head-on. Unshaking and made of iron. He’d bend but he would not break. 

It’d been so good in those first tentative weeks as Tony started to forage out of his shell again but it’d turned sour as Tony started to distance himself from James. James explained it away with the results of grief. Tony needed some independence after having been taken care of for so long, he probably felt like he’d overstayed his welcome like James might be annoyed with him. So James would wait, right there when Tony got his confidence back and would call him.

They graduated MIT and Tony became the full-time CEO of Stark Industries.

James heard less and less of him, he was not called.

Instead, he got his news about Tony Stark from the media, he saw Tony but he couldn’t recognize him anymore.

He saw him at parties, doing drugs. Heard of scandals left and right. 

It hurt James's heart to know that that sweet 14-year-old had grown into someone he used to be afraid of becoming. 

James couldn't do anything about it though, the Air Force sent him on mission after mission and the few times he was home he'd have just enough time to visit his family. 

He barely spoke to Tony in those first few years after graduating, until Stark Industries was in need of a new liaison that is.

That's how James Rhodes and Tony Stark, inseparable at MIT, were reunited.

It was awkward at first, they didn't know how to communicate anymore, both unsure if their former familiarity would still fly.

It'd been James finding Tony knocked out on his workshop floor, with a bottle of vodka next to him that brought them back to each other.

So much of that instance mirrored the very first time James came to save Tony from himself and alcohol and they both realised it as James led Tony to his bedroom. Leaving a trashcan next to his bedside table and asking JARVIS where he could find asperin and a clean glass.

James could've left then, but he'd looked at Tony, vulnerable and fragile in his sleep like that very first time many years ago, and he'd decided to stay.

He'd decided to stay time and time again. Through the kidnapping, the following Iron Man debacle and Obadiah's betrayal. He stayed without Tony ever having to ask him to because even after all these years he  _ knows  _ Tony Stark. He sees the worry in his eyes, hidden behind layers of self-depreciation and faux-ignorance. Sees that Tony, his Tones, worries that one day James will leave him too. James resented the thought. He stayed through it all, made the decision to stay over and over again, regardless of Tony's stupid actions. James Rhodes is a man not easily deterred, and he’s known Tony Stark for longer than a day, so he’d decided to stay.

He'd decided to stay.

And see where it brought him.

His best friend pulling away from him because the contraption keeping him alive is also pumping  _ palladium _ into his blood.

It feels almost ironic at times, James thinks, Tony never gets a break and therefore neither does he.

It's alright though, or as close to alright as it could be.

James had always known that loving Tony would be a losing game. He'd had ample time to come to terms with it.

* * *

Surprisingly, he doesn't lose just yet.

Tony survives the palladium. Kisses him right after he's synthesized the new element because "Not doing that would've been my only regret.” 

James is the one to initiate their next kiss. Tony’s mouth tastes like coconut but he’s too busy smiling to care. Too happy because Tony stark is  _ alive _ . He’s alive, alive,  _ alive _ . James hadn’t been ready yet to say goodbye. 

As they kiss till late in the night, he realises that he might never be. 

* * *

James doesn't lose just yet, it's postponed. The palladium is abated. 

Tony steals a few more years from death, but the clock keeps ticking.

It ticks steadily along, stutters slightly at the expanses of space and a high fall, but starts again afterwards. 

It ticks steadily, through so many things, through so many horrible  _ horrible  _ things that James wants to believe the clock might not run out at all.

He wants to believe that they have time, that they have all the time in the world. All the time in the universe.

The clock runs out on a battlefield, with the snap of a finger.

James is not there to say goodbye, but he feels it when Tony Stark passes.

He's miles away holding back some of Thanos's other forces but he  _ knows _ when it happens. 

The world turns upside down.

Time stands still.

Reality halts for James's realisation, for his moment to realise that he will never hold Tony Stark’s warm body in his arms again, will never press a kiss to his lips again and he thinks,  _ I was addicted to a losing game. _

His eyes burn, but the tears don’t fall. He is in the midst of a battlefield but his body does not move, somewhere, some part of his brain hopes that he might die too and Tony will come to get him.

No such thing happens, they’ve won.

James does not remember landing the armour. He does not remember much of anything at all. 

Everything's wrong, everything hurts.

The worst part somehow is that he’d known this day would come.

* * *

He doesn't see Tony's body, can't bring himself to look at it, until right before the cremation. Tony wanted his body to go out in a blaze of fire. He'd always said that being confined, even in death wasn't for him.

He looks pale and weak, like a plastic doll, like no one James knew or loved.

Tony Stark's body lies before his eyes but nothing about it is  _ Tony _ anymore.

James doesn't cry even then, he holds it back, holds it close. Refuses for a long time to cry.

There’s no acceptance yet, no acknowledgement.

Tony is still alive as long as he doesn’t cry.

Then Tony's arc reactor is being sent out onto the lake and James is watching it. He can’t do anything but look, he watches it until it disappears from view. Until everyone else has left. He stands there at the lake's edge trying to catch the last glimpse of the arc reactor. Squinting to catch the last rays of sunlight that hit it, the glimpses of blue. The flickering that meant  _ home _ to him once.

He stands there so long, hoping that it will somehow light up again.

No matter how long he waits, no matter how long he stands there.

Nothing happens.

James cries.

**Author's Note:**

> [_I spent all of the love I've saved_  
>  _We were always a losing game_  
>  _Small-town boy in a big arcade_  
>  _I got addicted to a losing game_  
>  _Ooh, ooh_  
>  _All I know, all I know_  
>  _Loving you is a losing game_  
>  ](https://youtu.be/oFrvRiixXcA)


End file.
